


The Man Who Could Blow Smoke at The Stars

by Stories_best_told



Series: The Letters that got Lost [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Human, Artist Castiel, Boys In Love, Dead Dean, Declarations Of Love, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fic within a Fic, Homophobia, Human Castiel, Hurt Castiel, Hurt No Comfort, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Inspired by Twist and Shout - gabriel & standbyme, Letters, Love, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Period-Typical Homophobia, Sad, Sad Castiel, Sad Ending, Sam is Missing, Stars, Suicide Notes, Think I definitely will make his longer, Violence, Writer Sam, might make this into a long fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2015-09-01
Packaged: 2018-04-18 13:57:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4708478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stories_best_told/pseuds/Stories_best_told
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I fell in love with him. Over and over, the same way I would draw him; heavy and frustrating, and then his eyes would be on me, over me, and I would smile and say too much... his blush was the same colour as the dusk over the harbor, and he would move away from me when we felt eyes on us, when we were sitting too close together, me leaning too much into him for people to not notice. <br/>I drew him as he lowered his gaze, and I still see the way his eyelashes caught the droplets of water, the pulse of ripples reflected in his eyes and flowing through me like a current, catching us in the moment and drawing us closer together again. I see it every damn day, in the water and the boats and the stars, and I see it when someone laughs like they don't mean to, and I can't stop seeing it, ever and sometimes it feels as though I'm living backwards.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Man Who Could Blow Smoke at The Stars

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to tell you that I have a soul, but I'd also like you to be aware that if you like this Satan inspired ficlet, I could be encouraged (persuaded) to write a longer story that prequels this, and perhaps concludes it! Why did Dean and Cas only have a matter of days? Was the attraction requited? How exactly, and did, Dean die? Does Sam receive the letter, or is there a darker twist there? Where is 'there'? Who the heck knows, cause I sure don't?

_Sam,_

 

no matter how many times I've tried to draw... him, it never ceases to amaze me how much of him I've lost. The complexity of the colour of his eyes, the texture and broad curve of his mouth, the blunt arch of his cheekbones. A little more lost every time I take the pencil off the paper, a version of him drawn in pencil and smudged.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 I went back to the harbor, and it felt like I was drowning. There weren't any boats, and I couldn't even tell where the sky met the sea, everything grey and cold and crashing. It wasn't like I expected to see him, brighter against the dull of the sky, sitting with his feet over the edge of the dock, waiting for me where no one could really see, biting his lip and willing time to slow. There wasn't soft, piano music that synchronized with the drum of the waves, that crescendoed when I ran and melted into his heat.

 

I wasn't expecting that. Not at all. I just want to be able to draw him again, tell you the exact shade of green this eyes ar...were, and the softness of his gaze. He'd have told me my sketches were beautiful... he'd have said I made him look handsome. The way I drew him - all those time, all those years ago - in black and white made his eyes seem lighter than they were, like a hero from one of your books. Like someone who could blow smoke at the stars

 

I was thinking about the stars. How they're like doors, where nothing ever changes but is always leading somewhere different. It puts into perspective how small and meaningless we are; we never change under the stars. We open a door, and we're 5 years old, cheek pressed against our bedroom window and trying to count each little candle in the sky. We might be 16, a girls skirts caught around her shins, her hip pressed against you as you point out constellations, or maybe your 70, standing by a graveside, remembering all the times you and he sat and watched the night sky together. No matter where you are, you are the same person,looking at the same sky as everyone else, and suddenly, you are 16 again, watching a girls eyes dance across the sky as you tell her the stories your mother told you, of Orion's Belt and Hercules. Where everything is always moving, the truth is, nothing changes.  
It could be easy to say, Sam, that I was never in love your brother. We were both so young and trying to defy conventions and save each other. We only knew each other for a number of days and we didn't really believe we could ever leave the situation happily. It would be easy, but if I learnt anything from him, it was that if it's easy, it's not worth it. 

 

I fell in love with him. Over and over, the same way I would draw him; heavy and frustrating, and then his eyes would be on me, over me, and I would smile and say too much... his blush was the same colour as the dusk over the harbor, and he would move away from me when we felt eyes on us, when we were sitting too close together, me leaning too much into him for people to not notice.   
I drew him as he lowered his gaze, and I still see the way his eyelashes caught the droplets of water, the pulse of ripples reflected in his eyes and flowing through me like a current, catching us in the moment and drawing us closer together again. I see it every damn day, in the water and the boats and the stars, and I see it when someone laughs like they don't mean to, and I can't stop seeing it, ever and sometimes it feels as though I'm living backwards.  
Sometimes, Sam, it feels as though I was born dead. That the day began in the middle of the night, when I was born and didn't cry. It was like I knew that crying then would make every other tear seem more insignificant, like I knew I would have more to cry about than being born dead, and I was saving my tears. I was born dead, and then I was clockwork, still dead but ticking and pulsing and hiding in a skeletons shell, until I met... until I met your brother. He coaxed the sullen, strange boy into life and it was like forgetting about time. I couldn't decide if I wanted to be loved, to be happy or to simply disappear, and he once told me I could do anything, so I did all of them. We disappeared inside ourselves and each other, and that was OK because none of the scars could make those vanishing moments any less beautiful.  
I would give my eyes if it meant he could see how beautiful it was.  
I want you to know all of this, Sam, because there's a difference between promises and memories; we break promises, and memories break us. It's so much darker, now that his light has gone out, than it would have been had it never shone, and it breaks me, and I want you to know that you don't need to be broken. We reap what we sew, and I broke a promise when I told him that I wouldn't let anyone hurt him, when I promised that no one else mattered...

 

I promised all of this, then watched him die, saw the complexity of his eyes fade to hollow grey whilst I cradled his head, long before the paramedics even arrived. He didn't stand a chance, Sam, you could see it in the way his fingers didn't fit into mine anymore, slick and bloodied, and I felt the helplessness in the soft vibrations of his collapsing lungs, bruises dusting his skin, so much so you couldn't even see the freckles dappled across his chest, and I wanted to _kill them_ , Sam. I wanted to hunt them down and burn them and I wanted to cry and beg his forgiveness because if he had never known me... but all I could see and feel and think was hot white and painful and I whispered one promise, one that I've kept and will always keep, always under my breath and under my skin and never loud enough for anyone to know or hear and hurt us for the promises we couldn't keep. Then he died and blinding, painful white coursing through my body died into a steady pulse, and I was clockwork.

 

Why is it we only let ourselves cross the line when we will never get another chance?

 

 ** __**That day began in the middle of the night and it hasn't got light yet. I can't work out how to live dead anymore, now that I've lived and loved and disappeared inside an infinite number of days that I can only now just remember, rusty in my clockwork mind, yet those memories still break me. They break me every time I cannot draw them, and I'm sorry, I'd have liked to draw you a picture of him, of how he would be now with his hair a little longer, a little grayer and his smile a little wrinklier. I'd have liked to, but I left you the sketch he said was uncharacteristically handsome, in the evening by the harbor, his lips split and grin lopsided as he spouted wonderful, useless facts and quotes, ones that inspired him and made him laugh and ones he knew from your father. The drawing of the day he lowered his eyes to the water and blushed the colour of the sky and smiled like someone who could blow smoke at the stars.

 

He told me then, that Thomas Edison's last words were; _'It's beautiful over there.'_

 

I don't know where 'there' is Sam, but Dean believed it was somewhere, and I hope it's beautiful.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you guys enjoyed this, please let me know, because I am trying to re-introduce myself into the world of fanfic writing after spending the summer travelling and working on my own novel! Unfortunately, this means my writing style has changed fairly dramatically and I'm not sure whether I will carry on with any of my original stories, and perhaps just start over (I will not delete the old ones though, I just won't conclude them, unless anyone had an infinite desire for me to do so)! So like I said, if you enjoyed it, kudos' and comments are always appreciated and I love you all, even if I am crap at updates!!


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